1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information recording medium, such as a high-density optical disc, on which various information can be recorded at high density, such as main picture information, audio information, sub picture information, reproduction control information, an apparatus for and a method of recording the information onto the information recording medium, an apparatus for and a method of reproducing the information from the information recording medium, an apparatus and a method capable of both recording and reproducing the information, a program storage device and a computer data signal embodiment in a carrier wave for controlling the record and the reproduction, and a data structure including a control signal for controlling the reproduction.
2. Description of the Related Art
A DVD is generalized as an optical disc on which various information is recorded, such as the main picture information, the audio information, the sub picture information, and the reproduction control information. According to the DVD standard, the main picture information (e.g. video data), the audio information (e.g. audio data), and the sub picture information (e.g. sub picture data) are individually packetized with the reproduction control information (e.g. navigation data) and are multiplexed and recorded on a disc in the “program stream” format of the MPEG 2 (Moving Picture Experts Group phase 2) standard, which is a highly efficient encoding technique. Among them, in the main picture information, there is data compressed according to the MPEG video format (ISO 13818-2), only by one stream within one program stream. On the other hand, the audio information is recorded in a plurality of methods (namely, linear PCM, AC-3, MPEG audio, and the like). The audio information can exist up to 8 streams within one program stream. The sub picture information is defined with a bit map and is compressed and recorded in a run-length method. The sub picture information can exist up to 32 streams within one program stream. In the case of the DVD, as described above, a plurality of streams of the chooseable or selectable audio information (e.g. streams of a stereo sound, a surrounding sound, an original English sound, a dubbed Japanese sound, and the like) and a plurality of streams of the chooseable or selectable sub picture information (e.g. streams of Japanese subtitle, English subtitle, and the like) are multiplexed and recorded by using the program stream format, for one stream of the main picture information in one movie (i.e., one film), for example.
On the other hand, the “transport stream” format of the MPEG 2 standard has been recently standardized, and this is appropriate for a higher capacity or higher speed data transmission. According to this transport stream format, a plurality of “elementary streams” are transmitted at the same time at a much higher transmission rate than that of the above described program stream format. For example, a plurality of shows or programs, such as many TV channels of satellite digital broadcasting, are multiplexed in time sharing (i e., time-division-multiplexed) to one satellite wave and are transmitted at the same time. Namely, in the transport stream format, it is possible to multiplex in time sharing the elementary streams of a plurality of main pictures, each of which has a large data amount, and transmit them at the same time. For example, it is possible to transmit at the same time a plurality of movies recorded on a plurality of DVDs.
Moreover, if employing the transport stream format described above, “multiple broadcasting” or “multi-view broadcasting” is also possible, which can perform in real time an angle change similar to the angle reproduction function (i.e. a function of automatically reproducing a picture of an angle by preparing a plurality of camera angles for one story and specifying the angle which a user would like to see), which has been already realized in the DVD standard, for example. More specifically, according to the “multiple broadcasting”, transmitting at the same time a plurality of camera angle pictures about one live coverage or one story as a plurality of elementary streams of the main picture information as one show or program enables the user to freely change in real time the pictures of the desired elementary streams one to another and to watch them, while the user is watching this one show or program through a tuner.
In the above described DVD, the main picture of one stream can be multiple-recorded with the audio information, the sub picture information, and the like of a plurality of streams. However, the main pictures of the plurality of streams cannot be multiple-recorded. Namely, the DVD, with respect to which recording is performed on the basis of the program stream format of the MPEG 2, has such a problem that a plurality of shows or programs cannot be essentially recorded thereon, which are transmitted at that same time in the transport stream format of the MPEG 2 as described above.
Moreover, even if there is a disc, which has such a high transmission rate and has such a high recording capacity or such a high recording density as to be capable of recording at the same time the plurality of shows or programs transmitted in the transport stream format, the DVD still has such a technical problem that it is difficult or almost impossible to judge which elementary stream pair or group (e.g. a pair of a video stream and an audio stream, a group obtained adding a sub picture stream to the above pair) corresponds to a desired show or program to reproduce from among a plurality of elementary streams in a bundle, when reproducing the disc.
Furthermore, in the case of the multiple broadcasting described above, an interpretation rule on the tuner side when the elementary streams of a plurality of main picture information corresponding to a plurality of programs for one show are transmitted at the same time and an interpretation rule on the tuner side when the elementary streams of a plurality of main picture information corresponding to one program for one show are transmitted at the same time, can be freely determined as a local rule for each country or each district, according to the transport stream format of the MPEG 2. Therefore, even if there is the disc, which has such a high transmission rate and has such a high recoding capacity or such a high recording density as to be capable of recording at the same time the plurality of shows or programs transmitted in the transport stream format of the MPEG 2, in the case where the plurality of shows, whose interpretation rules differ from each other as the local rule, are recorded on this disc, there is left such a technical problem that it is difficult or almost impossible to judge which elementary streams or which main pictures can be freely switched to each other, when reproducing the disc. Especially, in the case of recording on one disc the multiple-broadcasted show whose interpretation rules differ as described above, it is conceivable that the handling or response by an information reproducing apparatus must be complicate and difficult. Alternatively, in order to enable the multiple broadcasting to be reproduced in the same interpretation rules at a plurality of information reproducing apparatuses whose set interpretation rules differ from each other, there is left such a technical problem that it is necessary to apply a change onto the elementary stream format when recording.